


revolt against the honor to obey

by londer



Category: Dimension 20, Fantasy High
Genre: Betrayal, Gen, Only it's a magic world so it's slightly more dangerous and not watergun based, Watergun Assassins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/londer/pseuds/londer
Summary: Assassins is the ultimate Aguefort senior year tradition - teams of two battle to take out all the other teams for a cash prize. It's not sanctioned by the school and is technically illegal, the rules are extensive, and the whole thing is absolutely legendary.
Relationships: The Bad Kids & The Bad Kids (Dimension 20)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 80





	revolt against the honor to obey

**Author's Note:**

> no beta we die like men i have mixed feelings about this fic but it's finished so you have to deal with it.  
> apparently watergun assassins is not? a universal HS experience? anyways it was a thing at my hs where the seniors did this underground game where you were on a team of two and you moved through progressive rounds where you were given a target and you had to get that target with a watergun attack (hence watergun assassins) and then they would be out, but you also had someone going after you, and there were deadlines and rules about not getting people while they were at home or at work or at school etc. etc. and i thought that it would be a neat idea to project that in a fantasy world way onto the bad kids so here we are. it's all explained in the fic (i think) so yeah.

"What the fuck are you guys looking at?" Riz asks. The rest of the Bad Kids are huddled around Fig on the couch in the den of Mordred Manor, and they're all staring at the screen of her laptop. He sets his briefcase by the door and goes to join them, hopping over Kristen to sit on the back of the couch.

"It's March first, The Ball," Fabian says derisively, looking up only briefly to knock fists with Riz before he turns back to looking over Fig's shoulder. 

That means absolutely nothing to Riz until Adaine says, "Assassins signups open today, Riz."

"Oh,  _ shit _ ," Riz says, fully catching up and scrambling to also look over Fig's shoulder at the screen she's frantically refreshing. Assassins is the ultimate Aguefort senior year tradition - teams of two battle to take out all the other teams for a cash prize. It's not sanctioned by the school and is technically illegal, the rules are extensive, and the whole thing is absolutely  _ legendary _ . He's been so busy on his casework lately that he must have missed the release announcement. "That's today?" 

"Shut  _ up _ , it's open," Fig says, and her fingers fly across the keyboard in the newly opened Google form. "Okay. They're doing chosen partners this year, thank god, if they did rando pairings like they did last year I would literally barf, ugh." She mimes gagging and Kristen nods in agreement.

"Okay, okay, let's get this," Adaine says. She's got her laptop open to the spreadsheet they were all working in to pick their pairs. It's full of tactical analyses of their strengths and weaknesses and is the product of lots of long nights over pizza. Assassins is serious business. "Team one. Fabian and Fig. Safe zones: Seacaster Manor, Mordred Manor." Figs clatter across the keys and she mouths the words softly before submitting. "Team two. Me and Gorgug. Safe zones: Mordred Manor, Thistlespring tree." She and Gorgug slap a wordless high five. "Team three. Riz and Kristen. Safe zones: Strongtower luxury apartments, Mordred Manor." 

"Wait can you add Cassandra's shrine to that?" Kristen asks, poking her head over to look at the screen. 

"Isn't it part of Mordred?" Fig asks, fingers stilling over the keys. 

"No, safe zones only cover the exact boundaries of the buildings, I checked with Sam about it since she's on the planning committee. Mordred Manor means internal to Mordred Manor and not a foot off the porch, so the shrine has to be separate. They'll give religious overrides to the location list for clerics." 

"Interesting," Fig says, returning to the keys. "Okay cool. That's all of us submitted then and the Cig Figs are treating all our entrance fees." 

"Excellent," Fabian says, standing and stretching. "Well, I'm looking forward to crushing you all." 

There's an explosion of protests at that, Kristen and Adaine both hexing him instinctively. Riz doesn't say anything. He and Kristen have this in the bag as long as they keep their heads on. 

* * *

Armbands and assignments go out the next week. They're slim pieces of arcanotech that clamp immovably onto their biceps, with one fat central medallion with an LED crystal set in the center. They glow green in the safe zone that exists in Mordred Manor as Fig tears into the instructions while Fabian lounges on her bed. 

"Okay. Welcome to the sixtieth annual game blah blah blah...No murder, no excessive maiming, no willful destruction of public property, no attempting to force someone out within their safe zone. Safe zones are  _ not _ universal this year, you are only safe within your team's safe zone - I think that's new this year?" 

"Yeah, it's because that one cleric did that thing with the  _ confusion _ fog outside the entire perimeter of the mall last year and it screwed over basically everybody," Fabian says. He's on his laptop pulling up a map of Elmville. 

"Oh I heard about that, I didn't know that was this, though," Fig says. Gilear was working at the PinkBerry and had rolled such a bad constitution save that he had gone missing for a few days. "Okay. Armbands must stay on, they're green in safe zones, red in combat zones. You may only go after your assigned target, and will only be able to capture their medallions. You only need to remove  _ one _ of your target team's two medallions in order to eliminate them, medallions have a catch release that will activate when a single member of your target team drops more than a third of their health by damage inflicted by your team within a twenty minute period. If you fail to eliminate your target by Sunday at six pm,  _ you _ will be eliminated, even if your pursuers have been eliminated. Oh, armbands turn blue this year if your assassins have been eliminated  _ and _ you have eliminated your target - basically so you know if you're safe or not. That's nice." 

"That's not new, it's just that it hardly ever happens," Fabian rolls off the bed and snatches the letter from Fig's hands. "Oh my god, we got Hargis and Carey." He shoves it back into Fig's hands and returns to his laptop. "I'll start digging through their socials for their addresses." 

"I was getting to that," Fig grumbles, but she joins him and pulls out her crystal. "I'll update the group. I know Carey and I went to elementary school together, so he's gotta be in the Babbling Brook district. Ah, fuck, okay, Riz and Kristen have Zelda and Ostentatia so they're fucked, no word from Adaine and Gorgug yet."

"Tragic," Fabian says. "Okay, I got Carey's address, he's pretty close to your old house actually. The game is live, we could honestly go try and grab him right now." 

"Fuck yes," Fig says, already grabbing her bass from its stand. They tromp downstairs, making a huge racket on the creaky floorboards and talking about strategy. It's agreed that neither of them have the patience for a stakeout, so they're going to try and cause some kind of commotion outside to lure him out. (Fig offers to bring back the sexy rat; Fabian threatens to find out who has them and offer himself up to them if she brings that nightmare freak anywhere near him.)

"Oh, hey," Gorgug says to them. He and Adaine are in the sitting room right off the front door on their phones. Adaine waves. "You guys going out?" 

"We're going  _ hunting _ ," Fabian says and Fig rolls her eyes because he can't see her. "Carey won't even know what hit him. Who did you all get?" 

"Micah and Killian Forrester," Adaine says, sighing and getting up to plug her phone in next to the TV. Oof. "They're  _ twin rogues _ , it's going to be a nightmare." Fig feels  _ really _ bad for them, Micah and Killian are favorites to win simply because nobody's going to be able to catch them. 

"Killian also multi classed as a fighter," Fabian offers over his shoulder, still headed for the door. "Well, good luck!" 

"Yeah, you too," Gorgug says. His head is in his crystal and he's idly twirling his axe along its pole.

"Bye guys! See you tonight!" Fig twiddles her fingers at them in goodbye and follows Fabian out of the house. She can hear the Hangman growling in the driveway. Today is going to be a  _ great _ day.

Her combat boots hit the pavement of the front walk. 

Her armband turns red. 

A glowing blue fist punches her in the back, sending her flying across the front lawn. 

She goes face-first into the big oak tree that skulks on the corner of the lawn, and something in her nose crunches with a gush of blood down her chin. Behind her, Fabian is shrieking and the Hangman's engine is super loud but muffled as it tears off the driveway and onto the grass.

Her armband glows golden, and the medallion pops out of its casing and goes flying back behind her towards the house. Fig whips around, expecting to see assassins popping out of the bushes, but instead she gets to watch her medallion zip neatly into Adaine's hand. 

"Sorry babe!" Adaine calls to her, waving her fingers at Fig. She doesn't cast vicious mockery but she might as well have for how she mirrors Fig's exact demeanor from just a few seconds earlier. Fig's so startled she can't even come up with a good response to this absolute  _ betrayal _ , just spits blood out of her mouth and starts to wipe it off her chin with the back of her hand. "There are healing potions in the fridge!"

* * *

A blast of red arcane energy flies at Adaine, but before she can even think to react Gorgug is stepping in the way and taking the full hit. She screams in surprise before she can help herself, brain recalibrating to the situation, before sprinting towards the door of the Thistlespring house. As soon as she crosses the threshold her armband glows green and she's pushed heavily forward as Gorgug's bulk makes it into the house behind her. 

"Ow," she says plaintively, but she's already looking over his injuries which are far worse than hers. "What the hell was that all about?" 

"One third of my heath is a lot more damage than one third of yours," Gorgug says. His hoodie is smouldering and there's scorched marks across his chest, but he doesn't look poisoned so Adaine counts them lucky. 

"Well, hey bud," Digby's head pops down from the stairs. "You're back awful late. Hey, Adaine," he looks between the two of them and his eyes widen, sleep blinking away as he takes in Gorgug's burned chest. "What's going on here?' 

"Assassins," Adaine offers. "The Aguefort tradition, not actual assassins, that is." 

Digby nods, although there's a furrow of worry on his brow that was missing a moment ago. "You kids need anything? Healing? Flamethrower?"

"No, we're good," Gorgug says at the same time that Adaine says, "Flamethrower, please." Gorgug gives her a look, and she raises her hands defensively. "They're probably still out on the lawn! It's not against the rules to shoo your assassins away with mild force!" 

"Yeah, fine," Gorgug says. "I'm going to get changed." He very literally ducks down the hall to his room. 

Adaine and Digby share some weird eye contact. "I'll take care of the ruffians," Digby says, hopping down the rest of the stairs with a slightly manic look in his eye. He produces a very leaf blower style apparatus from the hall closet. "You go make sure Gorgug's doing okay, alright? If you two need anything, just holler, y'hear?" 

"Thank you Mr. Thistlespring," Adaine says, and follows after Gorgug to his room. (She also has to duck. There's a reason they don't normally hang out here.) She sits on the edge of his bed and it crunches sickeningly under her weight, and she watches him put cream on his burns and then a new shirt over them. "So. This is bad." 

"I'm confused," Gorgug says. He sits down beside her and the bed fully crunches to the floor. "Who the fuck is after us? Kristen and Riz attacked us after school but then Sparsh and Maddie were on the lawn here?" 

"I think they teamed up to try and trap up," Adaine says. She's really fuming about this a little because it's completely cool with the rules but also so stupid and annoying and such a Riz move that she could have seen it coming from a mile off. "Sparsh and Maddie have to have us, otherwise Maddie's spell wouldn't have worked on you because of the game wards preventing you from attacking teams that aren't your assigned target. Like, Riz and Kristen totally didn't even hit us, they were just trying to push us off school grounds and they knew that we wouldn't go to Mordred because we would assume they had traps set up, which we did, so we went here instead to get got." It's a pretty good plan and she's  _ livid _ that she didn't come up with it herself. 

"Why didn't they team up with us, though?" Gorgug asks, and he looks a little hurt. "Spring break I believe in you?" 

"They know we're threats to them in the final round just based on your health alone.  _ Fuck _ . Okay. Can I stay here tonight? It's probably not safe to go out yet, even if your dad uses the flamethrower." 

"Hm," Gorgug grunts. His shoulders are tight and Adaine leans into him and wraps an arm around his giant shoulders. He won't say it, but she knows that he's going to take this very personally. Like, Gorgug had tried to talk her out of surprising Fig and Fabian in the first round because he felt it wasn't honorable, no way is he going to be okay with Riz and Kristen turning on them. 

Digby appears in the doorway, wiping grease off his sooty hands. "All good in here?" 

"Yeah," Gorgug says, stands as much as he can in the small room. "Can Adaine stay the night?" 

"Absolutely," Digby says, "I'll go get you some sheets while you open the couch up." 

* * *

It's the final round. Six teams left, and they go until someone wins. Kristen is sick of the game at this point but Riz has that crazy look in his eyes that means he's barely slept in the past three weeks and he's unwilling to do so until they win or they get taken out. They're all six of them mad at each other from all the betraying. There's a reason this game is called Aguefort's ultimate test, because Fig and Fabian are mad at Adaine and Gorgug and Adaine and Gorgug are mad at Riz and Kristen and Riz and Kristen are mad at all four of them for trying to lead them into the trap Carey and Hargis set for them last round. 

Jawbone keeps leaving psychology books on intraparty conflict around Mordred, but until the game's over none of them are interested in doing any kind of healing. 

Which is fine, because Adaine and Gorgug are their current targets for the final round. And when they go down, they're going to have to go after their current targets, etcetera. Riz has a map of all the possible combinations of who has who on his conspiracy board. Kristen's just trying to focus on the current situation, which is taking out a man twice their size combined and a pissed off wizard. 

"It's probably going to have to be Adaine taking the damage," Kristen says. They're at Riz' office studying their info board, which is especially fruitful this round given that they're going after their own party members. 

"Agreed," Riz says. He's vibrating a bit from how much coffee he's had, despite Kristen quietly switching him to decaf a couple cups ago. "The question is how do we get her alone? Because if they're together it'll be another Sparsh and Maddie situation of dealing enough damage to Gorgug that would've taken out Adaine but it didn't hit her so it was moot." 

They've already had this conversation a dozen times now. Adaine's getting really good at making her schedule unpredictable in order to avoid any obvious ambushes and she spends most of her time either at Aguefort or at Mordred. 

"What about Leviathan?" Kristen suggests. "She still had tea with Ayda last week during the game I think." 

"Fig's the only one with a key," Riz says. 

"No she's not, Sandralynn and Jawbone have one," Kristen says. "Oops. Don't tell anyone that, I wasn't supposed to know but I caught them coming back from visiting Garthy." 

"Huh," Riz says.

"I think it was a sex visit," Kristen explains and Riz rolls his eyes and makes face. 

"That was a 'huh' of 'huh that could be useful' not a 'huh' of 'huh what do you think they did on their visit'," Riz says, miming gagging. "I don't think Ayda would let us attack Adaine in her library. Could we lure her out of Compass Points onto the street outside?" 

"That sounds too complicated," Kristen says. "I think we're overcomplicating all this. However we get her is probably going to be as much a surprise to us as it is to her, Adaine's too clever and would see through any plotting." 

It doesn't matter, in the end, because Killian and Micah out-rogue Riz the next day after school. Kristen and Fig hug it out and eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's together and pretend not to see Adaine stressing the fuck out because her and Gorgug's got their first targets easily but their next targets are the orcish warlock Adaine had a crush on last year and a bard who seems to live in the practice rooms at school and never leaves campus and they're having a really hard time getting any traction. 

Micah and Killian win it all, in the end, and are crowned kings of the school in a shitty little ceremony held at six am in the early morning mist of the back parking lot. Jawbone makes them all go to party therapy (again, Dr. Stevenson is a familiar face from their post-Nightmare-King visits) to talk about trust. They might even be a better party for it. 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr [here](https://myclericalromance.tumblr.com)


End file.
